


Ticking, Ticking, Ever Ticking

by K_G



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 17:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1656545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_G/pseuds/K_G
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All you can hear is the persistent tick. Never followed by a tock. <br/>It’s this terrible echo at the very edge of your awareness, and you smile extra wide so no-one will realise how much it aches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ticking, Ticking, Ever Ticking

All you can hear is the persistent tick. Never followed by a tock.

It’s this terrible echo at the very edge of your awareness, and you smile extra wide so no-one will realise how much it _aches._

You’re alive, and there is so much joy to be found and caught up on, you have a new vibrant appreciation for the way light angled just the right way can smooth out the sharp edges of a blind mage’s face and make him for a moment, soft.

_Tick._

_Tick._

There is so much joy, but you had forgotten that happiness is not the only emotion the living feel, and there’s an impossible weight tied to your ankles that hampers your flight from spectre to spectre. You make sure your smile is so wide, so welcoming, but it crosses the line into manic and the human dead shy away from you and it strains your smile further.

_Tick._

_Tick._

Always, the dull tick, the dull thud. Your fervent desire to live, to feel again like you used too when you were younger and things were simple, is countermanded by your godly mandate. Even an archaeologist can grow sick of being surrounded by relics of a lost time, a coroner can grow weary of caretaking those who pass too soon.

_Tick._

_Tick._

You know that as long as you hear it, things are going as they are meant too. You know that a _tock_ will herald your own demise, the splintering of your timeline, and that is unacceptable. You stated from the outset that death was no longer an option for you, you who have survived the most and lost so very much too passive consequence.

_Tick._

_Tick._

You try not to let it show, and sometimes a pair of spiderlike grey hands come to rest on your shoulders, and you lean back and shut your eyes and your smile goes soft around the edges like you’re sat in just the right light. But sometimes you hear another sound, at the very centre of your core, and your eyes snap open with pupils dilated and you’re tugging at those hands, wings fluttering frantically, it is time to go you have to go he’s here, HE is HERE and if you don’t get out this instant-

_Tick._

_Tick._

 

 

 

 

 

_Tick._

As you cling to your friends as space and time fractures in your wake, your spirit is bolstered. You remember how much you welcomed that infernal ticking when you first took a breath. You relax, butterfly wings flapping idly, and you smile extra wide so no-one will realise how _scared_ you were.

_Tick._

_Tick._

_Tick._

**Author's Note:**

> A short story I drummed up in ten minutes to try and force myself back into a writing habit. Feedback is always welcome ^.^


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